


The Voltron Pride

by perchance30



Series: Takashi, Prince of the Galra Empire [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of Sendak/Shiro, Sensuality, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perchance30/pseuds/perchance30
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Surrender. A group of kittens is a litter. A group of cats is a clowder, and a family of Paladins is called a pride. </p><p>Or – the Paladins find out Shiro’s time as a gladiator was actually worse than they thought (Thanks, Allura).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Voltron Pride

There wasn’t much that could make Shiro lose his cool, but he came very close sometimes when the team referred to his time as “Champion.” Most times, he could laugh it off, but today he actually debated about giving Lance extra laps around the Castle of Lions.

They’d just finished a grueling training regimen—one that was sure to rival any of the hardest at the Galaxy Garrison’s academy—when Lance came out of the shower area of the male locker room, singing, “…what I’ve always wanted to be/Watch right now/And you will see the _champion_ in me.”

Shiro pulled up his loose fitting sweats, tying them at the waist, and debated about slapping Lance up the back of the head. “All right, kiddo. Dial it back.”

“Oh, come on, Shiro. I think we should make it your anthem.”

“Uh, no.”

“But it’s so true! You beat all of us during the close-quarter training.”

“Shiro also has eight years and fifty pounds of muscle on you,” Hunk offered, slamming shut his locker and tying his headband across his forehead. “You were doomed once you entered the ring.”

“The Galra have ten thousand years on us and war ships three times the size of Voltron,” Keith supplied, throwing on his undershirt and grabbing his jacket from his locker. “We don’t have the luxury of giving ourselves excuses.”

“Hunk wasn’t giving an excuse.” Lance swung about, dropping his towel once he pulled on his shorts. “That’s fact, Keith. Even you got your ass handed to you by Shiro.” 

“And look at that,” Shiro interjected, coming to stand between the two boys. “You guys hit a new record. From zero to verbal jabbing in only fifteen seconds.”

Keith looked less than amused and crossed his arms. “We’ve definitely fought quicker than that.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, “I think your timing’s a bit off there, Fearless Leader.”

“And now they’re agreeing against you,” Hunk added, too amused for Shiro’s comfort. 

It brought a smile to Shiro’s face. “Don’t you start, too, big guy.”

There was a beat of silence as Shiro ruffled Hunk’s hair and headed back to his locker, grabbing a towel and ruffling his wet hair. Lance hummed, murmured, and finally sung, “When the others cower/I’m in my finest hour—”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Lance!” 

Keith reluctantly spoke up, “What—What is that anyway?” 

“ _Champion in Me,_ ” Hunk answered. “It’s a classic. Haven’t you heard of 3 Doors Down?”

“Pidge’s room is three doors down from…mine? _Whaaat?_ ” he growled, once he saw all the incredulous looks the team sent him.

“3 Doors Down is only one of the best rock groups from the 90’s,” Lance boasted. 

Keith rolled his eyes. “We were born in ’99.”

“So that means I can’t like 90’s music?”

“It means you have no taste.”

“Hey!”

Shiro sighed and grabbed his shirt. Maybe this time he would actually let the two kill each other. 

Except Keith actually relented, “It does…kinda…sound like Shiro’s anthem.”

Wait. What just happened there? Shiro threw a look at Hunk, who laughed silently and shrugged. “Just go with it,” he meant.

Lance immediately perked up and threw an arm about Keith’s neck. “Right! Right! It even has, ‘While I remember falling,’ which talks perfectly about Shiro’s time in the games, and then goes into his perseverance with, “Every day I try and I’ll do/Everything that it takes/To become the one—”

“Guys!” Shiro surprised even himself by the strength of his voice and urgency of the tone, so he sucked in a shivering sigh. “Lance, knock it off, all right? And Keith, don’t agree with him. It’ll change the entire dynamic of his team.” 

He saw both of the younger members stare at him with worried gazes, neither accepting his poor excuse for teasing. Lance, expectantly, was the one who spoke up first, “But Shiro, you’re, like, the strongest fighter ever.”

Hunk nodded, too. “Yeah, you’re freakin’ awesome.”

Shiro felt the cool sweat pool upon his shoulders and began to open his T-shirt, slipping his Galra arm into the bottom. “No, I’m not. Look, guys, just drop this, okay? Let’s find Pidge and—”

He didn’t get his shirt on quick enough; Allura’s singsong voice rang through locker room. “You’ve had ten minutes, boys. Hope you’re all—uk.”

She stopped short upon entering, causing Pidge to slam into her back. “Hey, what’s the deal, Princess?”

Shiro felt his heart stop and a cold sweat break out upon his skin. Allura’s trembling hands went up to cover her mouth, her eyes widened and frightened as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. Tears glistened and slipped down her suddenly pale cheeks, and that was when Shiro finally jerked his own gaze away. 

Keith, of course, misunderstood, his voice biting as he spat, “It’s not polite to stare, Princess.”

Shiro’s chest and back were mauled with scars, some ugly and deep, tearing through his skin like the terrible reminders they were. They sliced across his chest and torso from the swords and claws, and crossed upon his back from his whips, and though the boys had long become desensitized to their presence, Allura had yet to see them firsthand. 

But that wasn’t the issue. 

“It’s all right, Keith,” Shiro replied, slipping his T-shirt over his head and chest. “The princess wasn’t looking at my battle scars.”

Her eyes had zeroed on the scarred pink holes at the intent on his shoulder where his arm met his torso. 

“T-Those…Those are from the games?” Pidge questioned, unhinged by the sights of his scars, but Lance was there and Hunk, too, offering their youngest member comfort as she shook. Shiro endured such suffering for her brother’s sake, and she could never be grateful enough. 

But Shiro just sighed before taking a step forward—to usher Allura from the room, to flee, to cry—he wasn’t sure, but Keith grabbed his Galra wrist before he could escape. “If the Princess wasn’t staring at your battle scars…then what was she staring at?”

The truth made Shiro’s stomach plummet with icy dread as Allura finally found the strength to talk. Her voice accused in a raw whisper, hurt screaming from every word. “How could you not tell us?”

“Okay…what am I missing here?” Lance asked. 

Pidge slapped his shoulder. “What _aren’t_ you missing?” 

Shiro tried his best to keep his face neutral, even as Allura’s grew harsher and darker with every passing moment. “I’m fine, Princess. There were others who had it a lot worse than I did.”

She was in his face in an instant, delivering a ringing slap he didn’t dare duck. 

“Princess!” Keith admonished, but Shiro put up a hand to stop Keith’s retaliation. With the opposite hand, he cradled his stinging cheek. 

Allura spoke first with a fury they’d never seen her have before, even when speaking about Zarkon. “How dare you try to rationalize it. How dare you try to ignore it.”

How dare she make him confront it. 

“It is an attack upon your humanity, upon your person. No being should endure such devastating emotional and physical cruelty.”

The anger began to simmer, just below the surface, as Shiro clenched his teeth and rose to meet her fury. “Princess, thank you for your concern, but with all due respect, I neither need nor want to discuss this.”

“What’s she talking about, Shiro?” Keith asked, to which Shiro snapped, “Not now.”

He worked his way around Allura, making a clean avenue to the exit—with his sanity in tact—when Hunk stepped in his way. 

“Yes, now. No more secrets, Shiro. We made that promise to each other.” His eyes softened—Hunk was truly the heart of the team—and he rested a coaxing hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “What was so bad that you can’t tell _us_ about it? We’re—We’re your glaring, right? And you share your personal hardships with your glaring.”

“We’re a glaring?” Lance scoffed. “I thought we were litter.”

“A litter is for kittens,” Keith retorted. “Cats form a clowder.”

“Guys!” Pidge interjected as Shiro clenched his hands into tight, trembling fists. 

He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want them to know – what he had gone through, what could potentially happen to them. He just wanted to forget, but his mind would never let him. The war would never let him. 

Amber, evil eyes flashed before him, but instead of filled with bloodthirst, they were filled with lust and other emotions Shiro never wanted to remember or feel again. 

“You are always so strong for everyone else,” Pidge muttered, taking hold of his Galra fist and unfurling it to hold. “Let us be strong for you.”

Shiro couldn’t pull his eyes away from Pidge’s earnest expression, urging him to reveal what he had never vocalized – or acknowledged, even with himself. Perhaps Allura had been right to be furious with him, not because he withheld mission critical information but because he’d withheld such a personal trauma from those with whom he shared life and death. 

They were more than his brothers and sister. Hunk was right. They were, in fact—

“Guys, a family of lions is called a pride,” he said, not entirely forcing the tired smile to his face before it fell with a loud sigh. “Let’s grab Coran. I’m only saying this once.”

They ended up in the living area, Shiro sitting on the stairs leading to the couches, with Keith and Pidge sandwiching him. 

“The Galra Empire values the military chain of command above all else,” Shiro began as confident as he ever sounded, though his manner was closed off, hands lose in his lap. “With Zarkon at the head of the empire, there are two major branches of power—the army and the Druids. Their military forces are headed by their commander—you all know Sendak. The Druids, the mystical forces, are run by the witch Haggar.”

He took a long, shivering breath, gathering the strength to admit, “From Sendak’s generals to Haggar’s highest witches, the top ranking members of the empire are allowed to have personal slaves.” Pulling on his T-shirt’s collar, he revealed the curve of shoulder, showing the distinctive pink markings that looked like small puncture wounds. “The Druids mark their personal slaves with some sort of glowing brand on the skin. The army generals mark theirs with a bite mark.”

“ _Waitwaitwait._ ” Hunk waved his hands out in front of them. “They physically…bite their slaves? Aw, man. That’s just cruel.”

“And pretty painful, too.”

As Shiro released his shirt, Allura leaned forward. “Yes, Hunk. Many Alteans fighters were marked as such when captured by the Galra. It was very…demoralizing to our proud people.”

Keith rested a comforting hand on Shiro’s shoulder, right over the mark. “So you…you were a slave?”

Shiro surprised himself by meeting Keith’s gaze, and he was even more shocked by the reassurance he found in the younger man’s solicitous eyes. It allowed him to nod, though he still averted his eyes to his helpless, open palms. “A general liked what he saw when I was captured, and—and he never saved me from the games. I still had to fight, but when he was at the gladiatorial facility, I stayed in his quarters, which were pretty comfortable. As I said before, there were others who had it worse than me.”

He offered them a kind smile, though he hoped they wouldn’t notice it was fake.

They did, and they roared all at once. 

“How can you think that’s okay? It sounds even worse than—”

“So you were what? That general’s housecat? Or is called something different in the Galra—”

“This is a serious matter, Shiro. It’s time to stop trying to lighten the situation and—”

“Back on Altea, we had a saying, ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, but run when you see a Galra general with its teeth bared!’”

“Dude, was she at least a hot general with, like, the prowess of a cougar but the—”

“Stop lying to us.”

Everyone’s gaze immediately fell to Keith, whose narrowed eyes gave Shiro no escape. “It wasn’t some random general, was it? It was Sendak. That was why he was taunting you about being broken and a prisoner and all that shit.”

Shiro’s eyes and shoulders shook; his hands clenched into fists as he looked away. “Yes.”

“So…he wants you back?” Pidge asked in a tentative voice. “I read about you in his memories, but I didn’t get to dive too much into them before we had to invade the Galra’s main command base. He’s quite…enamored by you.”

“W-Well, I wouldn’t say that,” he said, rubbing his neck. “But I’m sure Zarkon isn’t happy with Sendak. A slave is the property of his military officer, so Sendak is directly responsible for me. And if Sendak were to recapture me—”

“We wouldn’t be able to form the head.” Lance jumped on the couch. “He would decapitate Voltron!”

“And harm Shiro,” Keith seethed.

Shiro placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “I’d be fine.”

“Stop saying that!” the Red Paladin exploded. “The princess was right, Shiro. This is serious. You weren’t just a fighter in the games. You were a freakin’ personal slave! I mean, what—what…” All his fight fled as he slowly sat back onto the couch. “What did Sendak do to you?”

It occurred to Shiro in that moment, looking at each Paladin’s face, just how young they really were. They’d been together less than a year, and the rest of them—save Allura and Coran, of course—hadn’t even graduated from the Galaxy Garrison’s academy. God, Pidge wasn’t old enough to leave the Garrison’s grounds yet without an older cadet or a chaperon. 

But they weren’t children anymore. They were Voltron, a battle-tested warrior, and they were his Pride. 

They would have no more secrets one day. For now, he’d have to keep a few, though he resolved to rely upon those who relied upon him.

When he spoke, it was no louder than a muted scream. “He broke me, Keith. I’m—I’m not quite sure when, but – when we were together, I never…fought Sendak. I even… _liked_ what he did to me. I condoned it. I thought I was never going to escape that place, so maybe—maybe—” The tears came then, even though he didn’t want them to. “—maybe I should just surrender to the Galra Empire. It was too strong and too powerful to fight, and if I gave up, I’d get the benefits of being a personal slave to the second highest ranking official in the empire…so I-I did.”

He dropped his face into his hands, unsure what to say or do, the severity of his shame too great for him to face the others. Too many memories came crashing down upon him—the musky scent of Sendak’s fur, the commander’s warm lips upon his own, and the nights they spent together. Shiro might never admit it out loud, but the mornings after weren’t so bad either, waking up in those strong arms, Sendak’s warm face buried in his neck like a soothing pillow. 

He could have done without the grooming, of course, but Sendak was a cat-like being, after all. 

God, he was pathetic. He was a slave back then and hated it, hated the games and the Druids, and the empire and the torture it gave him. He was sure every day would be his last, but those nights in Sendak’s chambers – they were such a contrast to the cruelty of the empire – or perhaps that was the ultimate cruelty of it? Subjugating him by intense fear and pleasure? 

Sendak was right. He was broken. 

Cloth rustled in front of him, and then Allura’s hands captured his and drew them down from his tear-stained face, squeezing them in an encouraging embrace. 

“We are all quite marveled by your strength, Shiro,” she assured, kneeling elegantly upon the ground before him. When he scoffed, her pressure upon his hands intensified until he let out a yelp.

“Princess—”

“You endured many hardships at the hands of the Galra, yet not only did you survive, but you are willing to continue battling them for the sake of the universe.”

“I can’t let them do to anyone else what they did to me,” he asserted. “I will do anything and everything in my power, so no one in my Pride ever has to feel how I felt there.”

Trapped. Scared. Lost. Violated. 

“Then it doesn’t sound like they ever broke you, Shiro,” Keith replied. “It sounds like you did what all prisoners of war do—wait, plot, and then strike.”

No, that wasn’t it…was it? “I didn’t plot. I had no hope for escape.”

“Then how did you get to Earth to warn us?” Hunk asked. “Why would you even want to?”

They knew the answer to that. When Shiro heard Sendak’s next mission was to Earth, he couldn’t let the Galra take the peaceful planet, but— “The things I did—”

“—helped you survived,” Pidge interjected, “so you could be here with us. And we’re grateful for that.”

Coran nodded and clasped him hard on the shoulder. “It was you that first day who made the team form Voltron. You were the one who refused to give up, and if you don’t mind me saying, I even got a little misty.”

Hunk hit him in the leg. “You told us together, we could save the universe, and—well, that’s a work in progress, but—we’re trying really, really hard.”

That was the truth. Together, they could do anything, even stop the Galra Empire. 

A traitorous little voice in his mind added, _And maybe even save you._

“You are no longer a slave but the head of Voltron, the leader of the Paladins, and one of the strongest warriors I know,” Allura encouraged. 

“And the champion!” Lance smiled and winked. “Don’t worry about Sendak. We’ll never let him get you again.”

“You’re the leader of our Pride,” Keith, the loner of the group, comforted him. “Sendak can’t have you.” 

Shiro blinked back the tears that rose again in his eyes, and the first natural smile came to his face since the conversation started. “Keith, what did I tell you about agreeing with Lance? You’ll ruin the dynamic of the team.”

That drew much-needed laughter from the team, but Shiro sobered quickly, granting Allura a quick nod. “Thank you, Princess.”

“We need to talk about these things, or they’ll come out at the worst of times.” She came to sit next to him and wrapped an arm about his waist in an intimate gesture. “But I have no doubts about our mission. You are a strong, brave warrior and a worthy rival of the original Black Paladin.”

Shiro choked and swayed, but Allura helped maintain his balance.

“Don’t fall now! We must defeat the Galra Empire and free all its slaves.”

A moment passed, and then another, and another before Pidge re-situated her glasses. “No doubts? Seriously? Because I have quite a few.”

“Most of mine revolve around Keith’s piloting,” Lance offered as he started out of the room. 

Keith gave chase. “Is sarcasm all you have? I wonder if you can quip Zarkon to death.”

“Ooh, ouch. I’m burned.”

“Time to make dinner!” Coran called. “Who wants a special Paladin treat made from—”

“No,” came from the entire Paladin community. 

“I’ll make dinner,” Hunk offered, to which Coran huffed, “Y’know, you are all too picky for your taste. This is war, y’know. Got to make some sacrifices.”

Everyone froze instantly, and Coran flushed red at what he just insinuated. They’d all lost in some way, and perhaps the only reason they kept going was for each other, because the fight didn’t seem so formidable, so hopeless when battling as a Pride. 

Shiro felt lighter for the first time in what seemed like ages. Maybe…Maybe he could finally start to believe in his escape. Maybe he wasn’t a slave anymore, and maybe he wouldn’t one day be forced to return to the Galra Empire to serve Zarkon and Sendak. 

Maybe one day, with the help of his Pride, he would finally be free. 

“All right. Let’s not all harp on Coran,” Shiro interrupted the silence and slapped Coran on the shoulder. “Why don’t we all make dinner together, huh?”

“Like, a Pride thing?” Pidge asked. Though she tried to pass it off as sardonic, it was definitely hopeful. 

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Fine, but I get the shredder—so I can shred Keith’s piloting skills.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll—”

Shiro probably should have felt bad about locking Lance and Keith out of the kitchen, but…nah. He had to do what was best for his Pride. 

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote an alternative ending to this story, but I wanted it to be more light-hearted than my previous work. So if you want to read it, you can find it – [here](http://ptw30.tumblr.com/post/148259243009/alternate-ending-to-the-voltron-pride)


End file.
